


The Not-A-Date

by Merayi



Series: TransFormation [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adorable, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anorexia, Anorexic Kylo Ren (Implied), Awkward Crush, Awkward Dates, F/F, First Dates, Fluff, Humor, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, LGBTQ Character, Light Angst, Puppy Love, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 13:26:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17468444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merayi/pseuds/Merayi
Summary: Kyla and Rey hang out for the first time after meeting. It doesn't go as badly as they both anticipated.





	The Not-A-Date

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, jeez. How long has it been since I updated? In my defense, I spent two months doing a seriously intensive writing course and have now just gotten back from a two-week holiday where I didn't have much time to write, but....

Rey tried not to stare. She really, really did. She didn’t want Kyla to get the wrong impression, or feel self-conscious, or anything like that. It was just… even all in black-on-black and so covered up that Rey could only guess at how many layers she was wearing, she was just stunning.

A swathe of fabric somewhere between a shawl and a scarf was wound close around her long face and bony shoulders. It took Rey a moment to realize that the scarf was separate from the hood that shadowed her eyes. Instead, the hood was attached to what had to be the most magnificent coat she had ever seen.

Made of soft, worn leather and fastened with a belt, the sleeveless coat hugged Kyla’s slender waist. It flared around her hips and fanned into four, pleated panels that draped to resemble long coattails. In place of a buckle, the silver clasps on the wide belt wouldn’t have looked out-of-place on a Victorian corset. Her arms were covered by the tight, black shirt she wore under it. The slits in the coat panels ran up the side hems to her upper thigh, showing flashes of black skinny jeans and practical, chunky, calf-high boots as she swayed nervously in the doorway.

Rey blinked herself out of her trance, snapping her jaw shut and jerking her head back up to Kyla’s face to pretend she hadn’t been gawping like a stunned fish. Under the hooded cowl, Rey could see the edge of a shy smile. It made her grin, possibly just a little too wildly, to see such a sweet mien on the face she had first met scared and scowling.

“Hey there,” Rey said, trying to rein her expression back under control. She had never been good at masking her feelings; her face just broadcast her every thought.

“Hey yourself,” Kyla replied. She lowered her hood. “We outta here, then?”

“Yup!” Oh, that wasn’t awkwardly chirpy at all. Overcompensating for her oafishness, Rey turned, motioning for her new friend to follow her down the front steps and into the dingy carpark. She felt her chest constrict; it felt like her diaphragm had attached itself to the roof of her mouth. Really, she should not be this anxious. It wasn’t like this was a date or anything. It wasn’t like Rey was desperately hoping that Kyla would be impressed that….

“Oh, fuck yeah!” the black-clad woman crowed, clapping her hands when she spotted the gleaming car. It looked almost violently out of place among the beat-up rust-buckets. “You borrowed the Mustang!”

“I borrowed the Mustang,” Rey confirmed, grinning.

What she didn’t tell Kyla was how difficult it had been to borrow it. Poe, already protective of his baby, had gotten a whiff of desperation in Rey’s asking. He had put two and two together as to why she wanted to borrow his car, and had promptly made a big, dramatic deal of not trusting her with his stuff, just to see how many extra chores she was willing to do for the privilege of driving Kyla around in his Mustang for a day. Rey wasn’t going to admit that she had willingly cleaned the bathroom AND the kitchen – thoroughly, top to bottom – just to impress a girl from a bar.

It was a relief to hop in the car and drive away from the stinking back alleys. Rey remembered having to live in places like Kyla’s apartment, and she firmly believed that no-one deserved to live in such a dump. Hell, it was a 20-minute drive from that seedy part of town to the nearest park! It would be nearly impossible for anyone without a car to get there.

She was so grateful to live near somewhere green now…. Well, it was more red and orange and gold at the moment. That had kinda been the inspiration for their destination; Kyla could probably use some fresh air and sunlight and open space. It was something Rey always enjoyed.

Best of all, it was a perfect autumn day, cool and crisp and sunny, with the scent in the air that was undeniably the changing of the season.

Kyla remembered reading somewhere that that autumn smell was the leaves releasing ozone and gases as they died and fell from the trees, as well as plant matter starting to decay, and changing jet streams carrying smoke residue from late-summer wildfires. There was a certain melancholy to that, she mused, that the smell that meant the start of the cold months was actually the smell of death.

No morbid thoughts, she chastised herself, not when she was out to have fun. She wasn’t entirely sure where Rey was taking her – part of the cis woman’s idea was for it to be a surprise – but she was going to do her best to have a good time. Even if she was really nervous.

The first part of the drive passed in easy conversation about all things sportscar, until Rey made the mistake of asking the question that had first come to mind when she saw Kyla happily discussing the Mustang with Poe: how had such a femme, well-presented woman get into such a messy, masculine hobby as cars? Did the cars come first, and then the femme stuff, or…?

As soon as the question had left her lips, she wished she could cram it back in. Picking at her nails, Kyla shut down. She turned to look out the window, muttering some half-answer under her breath. Rey got the impression that it had been something to do with her father, but that the relationship was too strained to discuss casually now.

She didn’t know if it came from wanting to ease her new friend’s sudden discomfort, or if she wanted to sympathize, or it was just the natural flow of the conversation, but Rey found herself talking openly about how mechanics had been a repeating theme in her varied life. Starting from repeatedly getting in trouble for taking apart mechanical things as a toddler, to a “job” in a foster dad’s chop shop when she was seven, to earning her keep fixing things a number of different foster homes, to now – after she had moved in with Maz, the woman who had finally adopted her – the job at the mechanic’s where she worked. She couldn’t remember where she had gotten half the skills she had, but she had ‘em, and that was the important thing.

Kyla seemed interested and a little concerned, shyly asking questions even as they parked on the roadside and schlepped basket and blanket and backpack from the trunk. Rey found herself talking until they had walked down the footpath into the middle of the park, spread the picnic blanket beside a large meadow, and settled down under the shade of a postcard-perfect oak tree. It was a dappled array of golds and oranges, and the blanket crunched dead leaves as they laid it out. Although the heat of the sun was warm, the air was cool, and the slightest hint of a breeze ruffled Kyla’s braids. She had taken off her scarf to show the V neck of that awesome, sleeveless coat. She had to be hot under all those layers of black.

“So, yeah.” Rey tucked her feet under her and shrugged off her cardigan. “That’s basically my life in a tool box.” Kyla’s full lips tilted up the tiniest fraction at the passing joke, before a furrow formed in between her eyebrows.

“I… I’m sorry that I… I can’t tell you more about my background,” she mumbled to the grass, “It’s just… It’s still a little too… recent.” Her shoulders drew up, looking uncomfortable and vulnerable and painfully reminiscent of how she had been in the pub. “Maybe someday, y’know, if we keep being friends. But, please don’t ask me now.”

“That’s okay,” Rey reassured her. She ignored the unexpected pang of… disappointment? at the mention of just ‘friends’. This wasn’t a date. “I know I’m unusual, being so okay with divulging my Tragic Backstory. You have no idea how much therapy that took! But,” Her smile was quick and bright, and she held up the wicker basket she had brought from the car, “We’re here to have a fun picnic! It’s fair not to wanna talk about doom and gloom on such a sunny day.”

Reaching into the basket, she pulled out two mason jar cups with handles and a thermos that must have been around 700mL.

“The apple cider isn’t alcoholic. I know proper picnics are supposed to have, like, champagne or rosé or some shit like that, but it’s the middle of the afternoon, and also Poe made me choose between bringing alcohol or borrowing the Mustang.”

Kyla laughed out loud at the comment. 

Rey made a large ceramic bowl, a small serving plate, a wooden cutting board, and a baking dish – all protected with beeswax wraps – appear, Mary Poppins-style, from the basket. The bowl had a fresh, autumn salad with roast pumpkin, shallots, walnuts, and slices of pear drizzled with maple dressing. The slices were less than even, and the pumpkin had bits of skin still stuck. The cheeseboard had cheddar, brie, ham, salami, and tiny, flat jars of tomato chutney, apricot preserve, and caramel sauce. She laid a small cheese knife on plate and rolled down the tops of five little paper bags to reveal two types of crackers, almonds, popcorn, and extra-dark chocolate broken up into small pieces. Kyla could smell the cocoa… and the cheese. One was noticeably nicer than the other. 

“This all looks really nice.”

“That’s just part of it!” Rey unwrapped the serving plate of quartered sandwiches, veggie sticks, and slices of apple and pear with honey and caramel. The dish was pumpkin pie, home-baked by the look of the slightly burned edges and uneven dusting of cinnamon. “I kinda wanted to make proper toffee apples, too, but it looked really messy to do, and all the recipes I could find used corn syrup.”

Toffee apples. Kyla almost pointed out that they were called candy apples, actually. She was more and more taken with her companion’s cute accent and West-London argot, as much as she felt like a cliché.

“Rey, this is enough food to feed us and another five people!” She didn’t mention that she didn’t really plan to eat.

“Oops?” Rey shrugged as she handed Kyla a plate, along with a knife and fork wrapped in a plaid cloth napkin. “I really like feeding people, and I didn’t know exactly what you would like, so I packed as many things as I could think of.”

Kyla closed her eyes. She had known it was too good to be true to find a person she got on with as well as Rey. There had to be a draw-back. She hated eating and felt uncomfortable around food, and she had to go and make friends with a foodie who loved feeding people. The irony was almost fatal.

She mentally balanced it up. It… it was worth a little discomfort for the sake of hanging out with her new friend. Besides, of all the food-related activities that Rey could have come up with, a picnic was probably the best; it made it easy to pretend that she had eaten more than she actually had, and it wasn’t ALL taboo foods.

Oh, well. She picked up a carrot stick and nibbled daintily while Rey poured her a glass/jar of apple cider.

As uncomfortable with talking as she was with food, Kyla had googled a whole bunch of conversation starters and committed all the ones that interested her to memory.

“Choosing an absolute favourite is impossible, I know, so what kinda books do you read? Like, do you have a favourite genre or author or whatever?”

“Oh!” Rey’s eyes lit up, and she nearly spilled her cider as she sat up straight. Thank goodness; Kyla’s first pick of question had hit the mark. “Thank you; you are the first person to phrase it like that! I never can pick a single favourite book, and y’know how everyone always asks that question at some point – it’s like one of the go-to ‘get-to-know-you’ questions – and my brain just goes blank and I can’t remember a single book I’ve ever read! Asking for a favourite genre is so much easier. Fantasy and sci-fi,” Rey finished with finality, “I love fantasy and sci-fi. But, like… Ah!” She trailed off again, her face scrunching in thought.

Kyla smiled; she was amused by the sweet brunette’s cheerful bubbliness. Rey continued.

“Not, like, all fantasy and sci-fi; they’re both really big, complicated genres, and I’m not so much a fan of the really, really creepy stuff, not the thriller or suspense kinda sci-fi. I like… um… Maria V. Snyder – her writing is so rich and detailed, and she’s done both a brilliant fantasy series and a brilliant sci-fi series – and Becky Chambers. She’s only written one trilogy – the Wayfarers Series – but holy shit, it’s got the best world-building I ever read, and there’s even an interspecies lesbian romance that isn’t even over-done or over-sexualized or anything! Um… Oh! And, Kady Cross’s Steampunk Chronicles is really good, too, but the hetero romance tropes were a bit much.” Rey swung her upturned eyes to Kyla. “What about you?”

“Uh…” Having been absorbed in Rey’s literary monologue, she was surprised to have her question turned back on her. She swallowed her tiny bite and bit her lip, wondering how much detail to go into. “I’m more into crime thrillers. One of the recurring characters in the Tess Gerritsen books, Maura Isles, she’s really cool. She’s a coroner, and it’s given her a really dark sense of humour. Val McDermid once had a kinda cool trans villain, but it kinda pissed me off, too. And,” Kyla looked up, thinking, “I don’t quite know how to describe it, but… like… mythology fiction? Like, I loved the Percy Jackson books when I was a little kid, and… I guess Dan Brown would be the adult equivalent. Stuff about fallen angels and vampires and all that teen stuff.”

Her teeth slipped over her bottom lip, nibbling on the painted flesh instead of the carrot stick in her hand. While she didn’t often read fantasy like the other woman, she had read a couple books that she’d enjoyed, and she wracked her brain to come up with a title that they might be able to properly discuss.

“What about… Throne of Glass?”

“Oh, fuck yeah!” Rey whooped. A woman walking her dog along the nearby footpath startled and glared at her before breaking into a jog. Rey didn’t seem to care. “I love those books! Now, tell me, did you pronounce it ‘Say-lee-nah’ or ‘Kay-leh-nah’?”

“Kay-leh-nah,” Kyla confirmed. She didn’t admit that she had pronounced it like that because it sounded more like her own chosen name, and she would much rather be a poor woman who discovered she was the lineage of Queens than a boy with the lineage of Queens who became a poor woman.

“Same.” Rey nodded decisively. She flopped down onto the blanket, picking up another sandwich.

The conversation exhausted for the moment, the two young women munched in happy silence: Rey wolfing her food down with an enthusiasm only someone with her metabolism could manage, Kyla picking awkwardly over small bites as subtly as she could.

“I brought cards, if you wanna play? Or – oh, man, don’t judge me; it seemed like a really good idea at the time – but there’s two sack-race sacks in the backpack… and a soccer ball if the sack-race idea is too weird.”

Kyla didn’t think she had ever laughed quite so often during a single social event. She didn’t think she had ever met someone quite like Rey. Usually, she would just be glad to have an excuse to put some space between food and her, but now she was genuinely just happy to do something fun with a cool person.

This was a good day. She was so happy to have made a friend.

The shorter woman was still pointing in the vague direction of the backpack. Kyla rifled through and pulled out the two burlap sacks, waving them triumphantly.

“You’re on!”


End file.
